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The star Fomalhaut hosts a narrow, eccentric debris disc, plus a highly eccentric companion Fomalhaut b. It is often argued that Fomalhaut b cannot have significant mass, otherwise it would quickly perturb the disc. We show that material in internal mean-motion resonances with a massive, coplanar Fomalhaut b would actually be long-term stable, and occupy orbits similar to the observed debris. Furthermore, millimetre dust released in collisions between resonant bodies could reproduce the width, shape, and orientation of the observed disc. We first re-examine the possible orbits of Fomalhaut b, assuming that it moves under gravity alone. If Fomalhaut b orbits close to the disc mid-plane then its orbit crosses the disc, and the two are apsidally aligned. This alignment may hint at an ongoing dynamical interaction. Using the observationally allowed orbits, we then model the interaction between a massive Fomalhaut b and debris. While most debris is unstable in such an extreme configuration, we identify several resonant populations that remain stable for the stellar lifetime, despite crossing the orbit of Fomalhaut b. This debris occupies low-eccentricity orbits similar to the observed debris ring. These resonant bodies would have a clumpy distribution, but dust released in collisions between them would form a narrow, relatively smooth ring similar to observations. We show that if Fomalhaut b has a mass between those of Earth and Jupiter then, far from removing the observed debris, it could actually be sculpting it through resonant interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work we demonstrate that the inner spiral structure observed in AB Aurigae can be created by a binary star orbiting inside the dust cavity. We find that a companion with a mass-ratio of 0.25, semimajor axis of 40 au, eccentricity of 0.5, and inclination of 90° produces gaseous spirals closely matching the ones observed in 12CO (2-1) line emission. Based on dust dynamics in circumbinary discs (Poblete, Cuello & Cuadra 2019), we constrain the inclination of the binary with respect to the circumbinary disc to range between 60° and 90°. We predict that the stellar companion is located roughly 0.18 arcsec from the central star towards the east-southeast, above the plane of the disc. Should this companion be detected in the near future, our model indicates that it should be moving away from the primary star at a rate of 6 mas yr−1 on the plane of the sky. Since our companion is inclined, we also predict that the spiral structure will appear to change with time, and not simply corotate with the companion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent observations have revealed that protoplanetary discs often exhibit cavities and azimuthal asymmetries such as dust traps and clumps. The presence of a stellar binary system in the inner disc regions has been proposed to explain the formation of these structures. Here, we study the dust and gas dynamics in circumbinary discs around eccentric and inclined binaries. This is done through two-fluid simulations of circumbinary discs, considering different values of the binary eccentricity and inclination. We find that two kinds of dust structures can form in the disc: a single horseshoe-shaped clump, on top of a similar gaseous over-density; or numerous clumps, distributed along the inner disc rim. The latter features form through the complex interplay between the dust particles and the gaseous spirals caused by the binary. All these clumps survive between one and several tens of orbital periods at the feature location. We show that their evolution strongly depends on the gas–dust coupling and the binary parameters. Interestingly, these asymmetric features could in principle be used to infer or constrain the orbital parameters of a stellar companion – potentially unseen – inside the inner disc cavity. Finally, we apply our findings to the disc around AB Aurigae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]